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- Herausgeber: Arc Publications
- Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
- Sprache: Englisch
Josep Lluís Aguiló's Lunarium, his fifth and latest poetry collection, takes up his recurring theme of the uncertainty of life. In 2008 this book, Llunari (Lunarium) was the winner of the Prize Jocs Florals de Barcelona and Josep Lluís Aguiló was appointed Poet Laureate of the City of Barcelona during the period 2008-2009. These poems speak in a multiplicity of voices, often from the fantastic surroundings of myths and legends - labyrinths, secret libraries, mirrors, hell and the devil, smugglers, pirates of the Caribbean, palaces with golden pillars, apocalypses... There is a sense that the poet is constantly pushing the boundaries of the possible in an attempt to explore what it means to live on the edge of his imaginary worlds, at the same time using these 'other worlds' to explore our own world and what it means to be human. Aguilo's language is rich and sensuous, and the beautiful rural and maritime landscapes of the poet's native Mallorca shine through the fabulous worlds he creates.
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LUNARIUM
Published by Arc Publications,
Nanholme Mill, Shaw Wood Road
Todmorden OL14 6DA, UK
Original poems copyright © Josep Lluís Aguiló 2016
Translation copyright © Anna Crowe 2016
Copyright in the present edition © Arc Publications 2016
978 1910345 46 7 (pbk)
978 1910345 47 4 (hbk)
978 1910345 48 1 (ebk)
Design by Tony Ward
Printed in Great Britain by T.J. International Ltd,
Padstow, Cornwall
Cover picture:
Fragment of watercolour ‘Zobeida’ from the Invisible Cities series by Pedro Cano, by kind permission of the artist.
This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part of this book may take place without the written permission of Arc Publications.
With the support of:
Arc Publications ‘Visible Poets’ series
Series Editor: Jean Boase-Beier
Lunarium
Josep Lluís Aguiló
Translated by
Anna Crowe
2016
CONTENTS
Translator’s Preface
Les Normes dels Laberints
•
The Rules on Labyrinths
Les Rompents de l’Infinit
•
Infinity’s Reefs
A Cara o Creu
•
Heads or Tails
Els Guardians de la Frontera
•
The Guardians of the Frontier
Pregària
•
Prayer
Els Paràsits del Laberint
•
The Parasites of the Labyrinth
Els Justs
•
The Just
La Roca Negra
•
The Black Rock
He perdut alguns versos
•
I have lost a few lines
Tumbleweed
•
Tumbleweed
Lector
•
Reader
Una Temporada a l’Infern
•
A Stay in Hell
Guineu
•
Fox
El contracte
•
The Contract
Estàtica
•
Static
Els Drets dels Morts
•
The Rights of the Dead
Amiga
•
Sweetheart
Les Metàfores de la Nostra Edat
•
Metaphors for Our Age
El Mirall de Tinta
•
The Mirror of Ink
Tres Packards
•
Three Packards
El Nom de les Coses
•
The Name of Things
El Contraban
•
Smuggling
Tenim una Casa a la Platja
•
We Have a House Beside the Beach
Les Normes de la Mar
•
The Sea’s Rules
Si Això fos un Conte
•
If This were a Fairy Tale
Minerals
•
Minerals
Els Millors Amics
•
Best Friends
Els Impactes Mínims
•
Minimal Impacts
Genius Loci
•
Genius Loci
Waterloo
•
Waterloo
Malbocí
•
Hex
Poesia
•
Poetry
La Biblioteca Secreta
•
The Secret Library
El Sòtil
•
The Attic
Biographical Notes
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
Josep Lluís Aguiló’s fifth and latest collection, Llunari, which constitutes the bulk of this volume of translations, was published in 2008 and won the prestigious Premi Jocs Florals de Barcelona of that year. His previous collections are Cants d’Arjau (Songs from the Helm) 1986, La biblioteca secreta (The Secret Library) and L’estació de les ombres (The Season of Shadows), both in 2004. His collection Monstres (Monsters, 2005) was awarded the Premi Ciutat de Palma Joan Alcover Poetry Prize in 2005 and, in 2006, the National Critics’ Prize for the best book of poems written in Catalan.
The epigraph, in which the poet sets out the various meanings of Llunari or Lunarium as given in the ten-volume Catalan-Valencian-Balear Dictionary of A. M. Alcover and F. de B. Moll, gives us a taste of where the book might take us: a preoccupation with time; books and magic, through which to predict the future or even summon up the devil; the body, and the lies that adults tell children in order to intimidate them. Already there is a sense that the reader may expect the unexpected. Reading these poems, what is striking is the power of the imagination at work, and the multiplicity of voices that speak through the poems. The power of the imagination might be said to be the underlying argument or leitmotif of Aguiló’s poetry. There is a sense of the poet pushing the boundaries of the possible further and further out, of exploring what it means to live on the edge of whatever world he has invented, as well as, at the same time, going further and further in, exploring what it means to be human.
Like Pere Ballart, the editor of Six Catalan Poets (Arc Publications, 2013), I am reminded of the extraordinary fictions of Jorge Luís Borges, with whom Aguiló shares a predilection for myths and legends, for labyrinths, secret libraries, mirrors, the hermetic and the magical. In the opening poem, ‘The Secret Library’, Aguiló pays homage to Borges, the ‘blind librarian’, as well as to the great mediaeval Mallorcan writer, Ramon Llull, whom he pictures deciphering the pages of the natural world, that “thicket of writing, the green and yellow words / of chapters written by a botanical god.” And yet, again like Borges, he is very much a poet of his own time, grounded in twenty-first century Spain, in particular the rural and maritime landscapes of the Balearics, and in everyday life, which he evokes in rich, sensuous language. The poetic voice can be humorous, tender, self-deprecating, but it also asks hard, uncomfortable questions and pulls no punches. The labyrinths and other worlds that Aguiló conjures up offer the perfect opportunity for examining our own world. The reader will here encounter pirates of the Caribbean, gunfighters of the wild west, fairies and fairytales, smugglers, hell and the devil, legends, and the world of the child. By offering the reader what is ostensibly another world to look at, the poet disarms us with strangeness until what is before us is suddenly all too familiar.
The voice in, for example, ‘The Rules on Labyrinths’, is that of a visionary who speaks with authority and precision, telling us he has written two rules on labyrinths in the narrow margins of the book of time. Why are the margins narrow, the reader wonders? We learn that the tunnels are to be made from ‘the worn stone of days’, and that the paths, which are obvious in spite of being covered with ‘the vault of nights’, lead ever further from the centre and are to be paved with ‘dark desire’. We suddenly understand how brief our own lives are, how we waste time, and why those margins are so narrow. A strong moral sense, a sense of justice, runs like a vein through Aguiló’s poetry, coming to the surface in poems like ‘The Parasites of the Labyrinth’, ‘Prayer’, ‘The Just’ and ‘Waterloo’, a long narrative poem that captures the lawlessness and terror of school, where tyranny and cruelty flourish unchecked and unpunished, and courage and loyalty go unrewarded.
The power of this poet’s imagination finds marvellous expression in his poem, ‘Heads or Tails’. Having decided that the head on the coin represents the masks we wear, and that the verso stands for the labyrinth, he then opts for a third and un-thought-of option, the edge:
As for me, let me have the space occupied
by the coin’s edge, by its fields, cities
and mountains. The eternal span of time
where indecision reigns.
There is no value in any instant but that
which the coin impacts on, as it spins nimbly
on its profile, as vast as a world,
living, not having decided as yet
on which side it will have to lie down and die.
This superb piece of lateral thinking is not so much a call to rely on chance or fate, or to abdicate moral responsibility, as a call to live in the present; a joyful affirmation of the boundless power of the imagination, of life itself. This is lyrically sustained in another poem, ‘The Attic’, redolent with childhood memories of “the smells / of chicken bran and the dung and damp walls / of this corner of Santanyí and bad Mallorcan cement”. The poet tells us that he still sneaks up there and sniffs for “the scent of moss, chicken-shit and old rushes”. So effectively does he conjure up the sense of place both for himself and the reader that we share his astonishment when we come to the last line: “And I forget it’s years since we demolished it.” The power of the imagination can be harnessed to lead to self-knowledge, and one way of harnessing it is through writing, which can be seen as a kind of magic (or so, allegedly, we may read in lunaria), and this we are invited to do in a sparkling poem called ‘The Ink Mirror’. In the pool of ink in your cupped palm you may see images of the future, but in that darkness is “a power it relinquishes from the first instant / that quill or nib is dipped in it.” Out of this void and out of our own poverty, we are told, will come
the burning, desperate words
that, from the first instant you do so,
now and for ever more, like tatoos,
are a reflected image of yourself. Ink mirror, it’s called.
Why not do it now? It’s easy, it’s magic.
